Protesters gather in the parking lot at Granada Hills Charter High school before the South Coast Air Quality Management District Hearing Board convened Saturday. Inside the school gym, officials and residents discussed the leaking SoCalGas storage facility.

GRANADA HILLS >> Air regulators called for shutting off the stench of natural gas. Residents called for shutting down the leaking Aliso Canyon gas field above Porter Ranch.

But after a second all-day hearing in Granada Hills on Saturday, the South Coast Air Quality Management District Hearing Board accomplished neither. A decision was postponed until after 9 a.m. Wednesday in a continued hearing at the air district office in Diamond Bar.

“I regret this tremendously,” said Edward Camarena, chairman of the five-person law panel, at the end of a second marathon hearing at Granada Hills Charter High School. “(But) I believe a thoughtful decision requires a careful deliberation of evidence.”

Since the massive gas leak was discovered Oct. 23 at the Aliso Canyon storage facility north of Porter Ranch, the natural gas field run by Southern California Gas Co. has prompted 1,800 odor complaints by local residents, many of whom said they were sickened by fumes.

Twelve thousand residents were relocated at company expense, as well as two elementary schools. The gas company has spent $50 million to move residents, seal homes and has tried unsuccessfully to stem the leak. A fix isn’t expected until late February or early March.

“My wife has been sick. I took my dog to the emergency room. My dog has been put on oxygen. There’s something going on,” testified Paul Terterian, whose family has been relocated from his once idyllic gated community in Porter Ranch. “Shut it down. Give us fresh air. We want to go home.”

After issuing a nuisance violation, the air board hammered out an agreement with the gas company to halt the flow. Seven state agencies have responded to the gas cloud crisis, with Gov. Jerry Brown declaring a state of emergency this month at Porter Ranch.

The proposed agreement between the air board and gas company heard by the panel initially called for SoCalGas to halt the well leak as soon as possible, capture the gas, draw down its massive underground reservoir, monitor emissions, provide detailed records and fund an independent community health study.

The new order considered Saturday also called for permanently shutting down the 8,000-foot deep well, known as SS-25, located roughly a mile from the upscale homes of Porter Ranch.

It called for a controversial gas capture and incineration plan be reviewed by other regulatory agencies, including a task force of federal Environmental Protection Agency officials.

And it called upon Southern California Gas Co. to monitor the remaining 114 wells at its Aliso Canyon gas field and provide the air board with gas injection and withdrawal data, as well as reports pertaining to a state investigation into the leak.

At the 11th hour, officials demanded the company submit a plan on how to notify local agencies and residents about future leaks.

For many residents forced to move or stay inside their homes after experiencing headaches, nosebleeds and other symptoms blamed on odor-detection agents in the gas, that wasn’t enough.

Before the hearing, dozens of residents and environmental activists demanded the order be expanded to shut down the natural gas field inside former oil wells that supplies energy to 14 Los Angeles area power plants and to millions of homes and businesses throughout the region.

The gas leak has emitted methane at up to 50,000 kilograms per hour, contributing to a quarter of the state’s heat-trapping gas.

“The air district doesn’t need to stall any longer because it has all the information it needs to make the right decision right now: Shut down the Aliso facility once and for all,” said Matt Pakucko, president of Save Porter Ranch, after the postponement. “It’s clear that dirty fuels and people don’t mix, and oil and gas sites don’t belong where people live.

“Ultimately, the answer is to move Los Angeles to 100 percent clean energy as soon as possible and leave dirty fuels in the ground where they can no longer do any harm to our health and climate.”

But Southern California Gas Co. attorneys, who have been subject to more than 25 lawsuits related to the leak, challenged the hearing board’s authority to potentially close the 44-year old gas field. An attorney twice refused to answer a question from the board asking that he describe the course of a possible closure.

“Certainly, there is immense public interest to have the question answered, and it would be a significant issue for this board, whether we have that authority,” said SCAMD Hearing Board member Douglas W. Lofgren, an attorney.

But Robert Wyman, a Los Angeles-based attorney hired by the company, wouldn’t budge. Shutting down Aliso Canyon wasn’t within the scope of the hearing board, he said, but fell under the authority of the state Public Utilities Commision.

He also refused to permit a witness to answer a question about the feasibility of installing gas well safety valves. The removal of safety valves from the leaking well decades ago has been attributed to the largest gas leak in the nation.

“There is only one well at issue that relates to the nuisance before you, SS-25,” Wyman told the board, noting that other wells had minor gas leaks that were repaired and didn’t fall under AQMD rules. “This field is a strategic asset of the state. We are entitled to operate this field. There are public and private interests to supply natural gas that would be implicated.

“We don’t believe the (hearing board) has the authority to shut down the field.”

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